For refrigerated boxed pizza from Uno Foods Inc., a green graphics scheme is out and a windowed brown version is in. The Boston, MA, company has embraced the new look for its line of 16 offerings from Deep Dish and Hand-Tossed Pizzas to Pizza Skins, Flatbread Pizzas, Calzones and more. The better-than-delivery look from Wright Design (www.wrightds.com) reflects the growing retail trend toward providing fresh deli pizzas refrigerated rather than frozen.
The look suggests an upscale version of an Uno restaurant take-out box. The strategy went even further to link the package with fonts from the new Uno menus to reinforce the strong connection between the food prepared at Uno restaurants and its retail products.
"Our retail offerings integrate the same, mouth-watering recipes that our chefs use in our more than 200 restaurants nationwide," says Michael Dellemonico, Uno Foods' VP, Sales. "We wanted to be sure to reflect that connection in our new packaging. So far, the reaction from retailers as well as consumers has been outstanding. We're thrilled that we've been able to achieve such a fresh, contemporary look."
Wright Design added vibrant color bands and callouts to the kraft-paper background to distinguish the different flavor and product varieties. Uno sales and marketing coordinator Meredith Rappaport says that in order to address consumer confusion, "We really wanted our variety designators made bigger and bolder."
Preprinted kraft liner
Provided by Southern Container Corp. (www.southern-container.com), the e-flute corrugated boxes offer a die-cut view window. Southern Container preprints the outer kraft liner flexographically in four colors. All products are shrinkwrapped or modified-atmosphere packaged prior to boxing. Products larger than 9" feature a window of glued polyester film, while others have a film-less window. The pizzas range in diameter from 9" to 16".
The new packaging rolled out in fall 2006 into major supermarket chains nationwide.
Rappaport says the redesign was 90% complete when "we had an epiphany to move into the deli-style, kraft-paper-lined box. The format fits within the meal replacement category. And we'd heard for many years that people wanted to see our pizza, so we went with a window." She adds that the company had previously changed its processing steps away from precooking, which makes the pizza ingredients more appealing as seen through the new window.
Rappaport indicates that overall materials costs remain the same compared to the previous packaging. Products are priced from $4.99 for pizza skins to $10.99 for the 16" size.
